Over and Out

Six nerveless deliveries by Praveen Kumar get us our third win of the tournament!

1st May, 2009

RCB 145-9 (20.0 overs) beat Kings XI Punjab 137-7 (20.0 overs)

In basketball, the go-to-man is the guy who takes the last shot. Clock ticking, his eyes dart around looking for the ball, and a nod of the head is enough to get it and set up to sink the winner.  Larry Bird of the Boston Celtics in the 80s was the master, clutch shooting game after game and expressing how he felt just calm and nothing else with seconds to go and the defence swarming him.

When Praveen Kumar lined up to bowl the twentieth over with 13 runs to defend, calm might have been hard to come by. He'd gone for 14 runs in his previous over, and with Irfan Pathan on strike, two sixes didn't seem a bridge too far.

But Kumble had provided inspiration with a gripping penultimate over, foxing Sangakkara with a googly. And Virat Kohli demonstrated why fielding can often be the 12th batsman, with a well-timed dive to save a boundary off the last ball of Kumble's over.

With the No.5 position on the table at stake, Praveen spun a . 4. WW.  web of deceit, out thinking Irfan with changes in pace, and just missing out on the second hat-trick of the match.

Of course, the pleased-as-punch look on the faces of our stars was also explained by the fact that Yuvraj Singh had the match on his bat, and ball. Almost.

First, he prised out Robin, Jacques and Mark Boucher in succession to get the first hat-trick of IPL 2009, leaving us at a precarious 84/5 in 13 overs. 

But Yusuf Abdullah was kind, and Virat and Roelof accepted his overpitched offerings with glee, crashing 21 runs in an over to lead us to a respectable total. 

Then, Yuvraj came out as opener to take charge, and smashed 50 off 33 balls, as if continuing his guard from the Stuart Broad massacre at the same venue. 

Thankfully for us, Anil got him next ball, and even though there was 70 on the board from just 10 overs, the match was on.

The strategic break, a seven and a half minutes advertiser's delight in the middle of the innings, is a strange creature. It hounds batsmen, who, no doubt energized by the liquids they consume, come back on ready to show the bowler who the T20 format really belongs to.

Unfortunately for them, it's the bowler who usually who gets to guffaw, having watched an innocuous delivery hit right into the hands of the men on the ropes. Karan Goel obliged by bringing the Roelof-Virat combination into action, flattening a drive straight to Kohli at long on.

It brought Katich and Sangakkara together, and after a couple of quiet overs, they decided to take a chance with Roloef's arm, who got Katich run-out with a stunning slide-collect-throw while still on his stomach.   

It wasn't till Jayawardena and Pathan got a couple of boundaries each by the 18th over that Punjab got a sniff back into the game, needing 17 off the last two overs.

As the match went down to the wire, Preity Zinta's glum expression drew a brilliantly timed, sympathetic "Oh. Preity!" from Harsha Bhogle, which broke the tension for a fleeting moment.

Praveen did the needful, and the belief in the camp keeps on rising.

Here's a video of highlights from the game. (Fast forward to 22:30 to watch the last two overs)